With 'Us', horror maestro Jordan Peele levels up from 'Get Out' to deliver an oddly timely and utterly terrifying vision of America.
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Sometimes, our worst enemies are ourselves. Comedian-turned-horror filmmaker Jordan Peele takes this premise and spins it into a terrifying sophomore film. We begin in 1986 when a young Adelaide wanders off from her father at an amusement into a hall of mirrors attraction, where she encounters a girl who looks exactly like her. The encounter leaves Adelaide in a state of shock, unable to speak. It’s a trauma she carries into adulthood as a mother of two, played by Lupita Nyong’o (‘12 Years a Slave’).
Adelaide and her family, comprising husband Gabe (Black Panther’s Winston Duke), son and daughter, Jason (Evan Alex) and Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) respectively, take a family vacation to Santa Cruz. On the way to, and at, the beach, Adelaide starts to notice unnerving signs that things are off.
Back at their vacation house at night, Jason observes that a family of four is standing stationary outside their house. Gabe tries to scare them off with threats and a baseball bat, but his machismo quickly evaporates when their uninvited guests not only do not seem to be intimidated but pounces on them instead. In no time, their home is invaded and they are at the mercy of four people who, they find out to their horror, look exactly like them. Adelaide’s doppelgänger informs them, through a strained raspy voice, that they, the Tethered, have all been living underground, oppressed, biding their time.
Despite well-pitched performances from the ensemble cast, the star of the film is undoubtedly Nyong’o, who brings fearsome energy and panache to her dual roles as the protective matriarch and her own double. Duke holds his own too, summoning unexpected vulnerability for someone whom we’ve seen as a dominant masculine figure from ‘Black Panther’ as well as a bumbling humour that serves as welcome breaks to the increasing mayhem.
The film leaves many of our questions unexplained and the social commentary is not as clear and straightforward as in ‘Get Out’. But rather than it being a bad thing, the ambiguity makes ‘Us’ even scarier. After all, it is what we do not understand - the Other - that scares us the most, and that may be the film’s most potent message.
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